Went to service today - it's the last service before the change to the new schedule. It sounded a lot more like leader's meeting than the normal sermon today but it's a befitting end and a resounding beginning to the new year.
Ps Khong talked about plans for the new year. Made me dread the going back to school initially because I will probably be hearing a similar plan-setting 'sermon' tomorrow when we go for school meeting. But towards the end, I felt as if God had touched me inwardly through the message from Ps Khong.
First and foremost, Ps talked about transformation not being about garnering power, status, control or being reputable. It's about loving your neighbour.
"The entire law is summed up in a single command - Love your neighbour as yourself" (Gal 5:14). One of the thing that spoke to me was when Ps mentioned that we ought to give thanks for things that went well this year but more so for those things that didn't go so well this year. So I reflected back and realized that there are a number of things that bothered me as things that didn't exactly turn out the way I wanted it to be. On top of that, Ps went on sharing about how he's going to meet other pastors for the Love Singapore meetings and it struck me that humility does come before we can go on doing anything for God. God has to humble me with people that are difficult to work with so that I can grow. And I just praise and gave thanks to God for those things this year.
Ps then went on mapping out his SOP for Love Your Neighbour. Very succintly, it's Sacrifice and Service, Ownership and Obedience and finally Place and People.
To "Love", it requires Sacrifice and Service. One takeaway that Ps drummed in was that love requires sacrifice (Jn 15:13). He gave a few examples - eg. God gave his son for us. But one interesting observation was how couples should sacrifice for one another - if all couples do that, marriages will be very stable! Matt 20:28 talked about service, on how we should serve one another and how humility comes before honour.
Next part is "Your" - and that is about Ownership (Jn 15:16) and Obedience (Luke 14:27). I think that's something really revealing to me because the people we reach out to are personal - be it colleagues, pupils, friends, relatives, family, etc. . we are all running the same race but the experience is all personal. 1 Cor 15:58 spoke to me greatly:
"Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain"
It's like - it's not as if I didn't exactly do anything, but somehow, things doesn't seem to be happening. I could put in my all in work and put in my all in an event, but somehow, I ain't exactly getting what I thought God will return. But this verse encouraged me greatly that all is not done in vain. One of the thing that interest me would be how Ps will be integrating the cell group strategies into the G12 vision - actually, I am sure that if Ps is a principal, he will be a top-notch one because he just defts into vision, mission and values so smoothly and distills the essentials for us to work it out. That's a master craftsman. I am actually very honoured and glad to have such a leader in my midst (though he does have his flaws lah - I mean, still human to err lah. . .)
Last off is "Neighbour" - and that is Place (Matt 6:10) and People (Gen 1:28). Acts 17:26 - 27 and Gen 12:2 - 3 talked about this as well. Just don't ask me to delve into this further because you know what? I am getting tired of blogging so much . . .
